The void fractured like a wound tearing through reality itself. Pixels peeled away from nothingness, stuttering in jagged spirals of light and shadow. From that chaos, a figure stepped through.
He wasn't just a man. Not really. Every edge of his form frayed like torn film, static weaving in and out, stitching and unstitching itself in endless loops. His cloak rippled, though there was no wind here, the threads unraveling and reassembling like they had their own mind.
And his eyes… gods, his eyes. Twin whirlpools of corrupted light, spinning like galaxies devouring themselves. They locked onto Erevan with a familiarity that made his stomach twist.
The Nullifier Prime, still towering with its deletion-forged blade humming low, didn't strike at the newcomer. Instead, it lowered its stance, tilting its massive head in eerie recognition. Like it was waiting for orders.
Erevan's lungs burned from the last fight, every breath jagged and ragged. His hand shook as he raised it, Pathbreaker flickering faintly at his side. Sarcasm came easier than admitting fear.
"So. Another cryptic freak with glowing eyes. What's next, a dramatic speech about destiny before you try to kill me?" he rasped, forcing humor through the tension.
The figure laughed—and the sound broke apart mid-note, cycling through pitches and tones, like the void itself couldn't decide what his voice should be.
"Monologue? No. I'm here to welcome you. You've done what no anomaly before you ever dared. You chose outside the system."
Erevan's pulse jumped. Outside the system? The words sank like barbs into his mind.
Kaelith didn't wait. She stepped forward, arrow nocked, eyes sharp as flint.
"Stay back. Whoever you are, you reek of corruption."
The figure's gaze flicked to her, flat, disinterested, lips curling into a half-smile.
"And you—placeholder with delusions of agency. A shadow scribbled into the margins of a story you'll never control. Your fate isn't written in my lines."
Erevan's chest tightened. Placeholder? He saw Kaelith's jaw clench, her bowstring trembling yet held steady. That made his legs move before his mind could catch up.
"Touch her," he rasped, teeth gritted, forcing strength into his voice even as his body wavered, "and I'll rend your code into confetti."
The stranger's grin sharpened, pleased.
"Good. Fire. I like that."
He spread his arms wide, like a cosmic joke being unveiled.
"Name's Kyros. The first. The original glitch. Long before you clawed your way out of the leash the system fastened on you, I was already rewriting it."
The air buzzed with static, thick and electric.
[System Alert: Unauthorized Entity Detected]
[Designation: Kyros – Rogue Anomaly]
[Threat Level: Undefined]
Erevan blinked. Wait. The system actually labeled him?
Out loud, he scoffed. "Seriously? It gave you a name tag? Guess even the Watcher couldn't file you under 'edgelord in tattered cosplay.'"
Kyros laughed again, low and jagged. "Oh, it tried. But I'm beyond its little categories. Like you, Pathbreaker. Except unlike you, I didn't stumble into my power by accident." His gaze bore into Erevan, sharp as glass. "I embraced it."
The Nullifier Prime sank to one knee, lowering its weapon like a knight kneeling before a king.
Kaelith hissed through her teeth. "He controls them. The system's countermeasures answer to him."
Erevan's gut turned to ice. Which means… he's either worse than the system… or he is the system.
Kyros tilted his head, grin widening as if he'd heard the thought before it formed.
"Neither. I am what happens when you stop resisting and start becoming."
His eyes burned into Erevan, searing, impossible to look away from.
"You feel it already, don't you? The shard eating you alive. The code in your veins. You're not human anymore. Not really. The longer you cling to your fragile sense of self, the faster you'll break."
Erevan's fists clenched, sparks of glitch-fire crackling across his skin, betraying the storm inside him.
"You don't get to decide what I am."
Kyros chuckled low, indulgent. "Oh, you misunderstand. I'm not deciding. I'm offering."
He gestured casually, and the Prime rose, weapon lowering slightly, leashed like a predator.
"Join me. Together, we can stop being anomalies. Stop running. We can become the system. Rewrite it. Control the Watcher instead of being hunted by it."
"Don't listen," Kaelith snapped, voice sharp as her arrows. "He's poison."
Right then, Sir Quacksalot fluttered down onto Erevan's shoulder. The tiny duck vibrated with fury, feathers puffed, a sharp quack punctuating Kaelith's words like divine confirmation.
Kyros cocked his head, amused. "Even your pet knows I'm right." His smirk deepened. "Without me, you'll burn out, Pathbreaker. The system will crash you, and when it does, everything you're fighting for—" he gestured at the fractured horizon, the wireframe sky unraveling "—will dissolve into nothing."
Erevan's shard pulsed, hot and alive inside his chest. His vision fractured briefly, reflection splitting into overlapping shards. In one, he wasn't himself anymore. Older, shattered, surrounded by kneeling Nullifiers, laughing while the world burned.
His knees buckled. Pain lanced through his skull, choking back a gasp.
[System Warning: Mental integrity compromised]
[Pathbreaker resonance unstable]
Kyros leaned in, grin now all teeth.
"See? It's already happening. You and I are the same. The only difference is whether you fight it… or wield it."
The Nullifier Prime loomed above them, blade humming like a heartbeat in a dead void. Reality warped around it, wireframe forest glitching violently, air trembling with fear of its presence.
Erevan's shard pulsed, veins humming with static energy. Breaths jagged, body trembling, blood in his nose thick and metallic. Focus. Don't let it—no. Don't let Kyros get under your skin. Don't let it win.
He forced himself upright, chest heaving. "Alright," he muttered through gritted teeth. "Let's see what you're made of."
The Prime raised its sword, each movement tearing patches of forest into pixels and dust. Kaelith's eyes widened; arrows disintegrated mid-flight, shredded by invisible defenses.
"Erevan!" she shouted, desperation cutting every word. "It's not just physical! You'll have to—"
Before she could finish, Erevan surged forward, Pathbreaker igniting along his arm. His body fractured into glitching shards of code, reality itself warping around him as he collided with the Prime's blade in a blinding explosion of static fire.
Time splintered. Fragments of wireframe trees and shattered ground spun in slow arcs, shards of reality raining down like metallic hail. Every nerve screamed. He gritted his teeth, refusing to look at the pain, glyphs burning along his skin, shards of himself reflected in broken fragments of the void.
If I go any further… I might break…
Kyros's laughter slithered through his mind, low and jagged. "You're one of us already. Taste the power, Pathbreaker. You know it wants you."
Erevan's gut twisted violently. I'm not you. I'll never be you. The shard pulsed, hotter, insistent, almost sentient. He could feel the Prime's code leaking into his veins, trying to fuse with him.
Kyros's grin widened, sharp and crooked, like glass shards catching the flickering void-light. He leaned slightly forward, the static around him crackling like a live wire.
"You're tense," he said, voice a strange melody of tones, shifting mid-word. "I like that. Means you're still… human. Fragile, stubborn, utterly predictable. And yet…" He spread his hands slowly, almost theatrically. "You've got that spark. That chaos. That thing the system never intended."
Erevan's teeth ground together. "Yeah? Well, I didn't exactly ask for a tour of your creepy fan club, either."
Kyros chuckled, a low, jagged sound that seemed to echo inside Erevan's skull. "Name's Kyros. The first. The original glitch. Before you clawed free of the leash, before you stumbled into your shard and your shiny little toy called Pathbreaker… I was already rewriting the rules. Already outside their control."
[System Alert: Unauthorized Entity Detected]
[Designation: Kyros – Rogue Anomaly]
[Threat Level: Undefined]
The system's voice buzzed faintly in Erevan's head. Sharp. Cold. Judging.
[Warning: Mental integrity compromised]
[Pathbreaker resonance unstable]
Erevan swore under his breath, feeling the shard in his chest pulse erratically, almost alive. Every heartbeat was a hammer, reverberating in his veins, coding itself into his muscles and nerves. Sparks of glitch-fire hissed along his skin.
Kaelith shifted uncomfortably, hands trembling around her bow. "Erevan… don't let him get in your head."
"I'm fine," he rasped. Lies. Every word of it. He could feel his mind fraying at the edges, shards of reflection folding over each other, reality slipping like wet paper through his fingers.
Kyros stepped closer, shadows stretching unnaturally, swallowing fragments of the void. "You feel it already, don't you? The shard, the code inside you… It wants something. To rewrite you. To break you. You're not human anymore. Not really. And the longer you cling to that fragile self of yours, the faster it'll consume you."
Erevan's hands clenched, fingers white, sparks dancing across his palms. "I don't care what it wants."
Kyros's grin softened into something almost tender. "Oh, you misunderstand. I'm not deciding for you. I'm offering."
The Nullifier Prime shifted behind Kyros, a silent sentinel, blade humming with deletion energy. Every movement made the wireframe forest warp in fear.
"Join me," Kyros said casually, as if discussing the weather. "Stop being anomalies. Stop running. Together… we could be the system. Control the Watcher. Rewrite the rules instead of being hunted by them."
"Don't listen!" Kaelith barked, arrow trembling. "He's poison!"
Sir Quacksalot flapped fiercely onto Erevan's shoulder, quacking sharply, feathers puffed like a tiny, indignant general. The duck's presence grounded him, a ridiculous but effective anchor in the chaos.
Kyros's eyes flicked toward the tiny warrior and then back to Erevan. "Even your pet knows I'm right."
Erevan swallowed hard. Right. Or the trap that kills me. The shard pulsed violently, veins humming with raw energy. He could feel it, the whispers, the tug of assimilation, like a predator testing the fence of his mind.
[System Warning: Mental integrity compromised]
[Pathbreaker resonance unstable]
He staggered slightly, blood and sweat mixing on his skin. Sparks of light flared along his veins. The shard wasn't just reacting. It was screaming. Demanding. Trying to merge him with the code, the void, the Prime… the system itself.
Kyros's laughter slithered through his head again. "Taste it, Pathbreaker. You know it wants you. Don't fight it… embrace it."
Erevan's chest heaved. Every instinct screamed resist. His mind fractured into endless possibilities, reflections of himself twisted and broken in the void. One version kneeled before the Nullifier Prime, laughing while the world burned. Another… snapped, free and wild, shards of reality dancing around it like sparks from a forge.
I'm not you. I'll never be you, he thought, teeth gritted. Every pulse of the shard pushed, tried to overwrite him, rewrite him.
Kaelith gripped his arm, whispering, voice almost drowned by the hum of static: "Stay human. Stay you. Don't let it take you."
Erevan's laugh was ragged, bitter, almost feral. "Human? Sweetheart… that ship sailed the moment I picked up this shard."
The Nullifier Prime shifted its stance, glyphs flickering violently, the weapon's hum a dirge for anyone who dared oppose it. Reality warped with every movement.
The shard pulsed hotter, insistent. Every vein felt alive, every nerve ending coding and recoding itself. The power wanted him. Assimilation.Control.Survival.
Erevan's mind screamed back. No. I am me.
He slammed YES.
Light exploded, threads of glyph-code ripping free from the Prime, funneling into him. His body convulsed violently, veins alight with burning symbols. Every shard of his reflection multiplied, a kaleidoscope of screaming faces. Pain. Ecstasy. Infinite energy clawing at every fiber of him.
And then—clarity.
Pathbreaker flared into its ultimate form: Prime Rend.
Erevan rose, knees trembling, blood dripping from nose and ears, eyes blazing with glyphs mirroring Kyros's corrupted light—but powered by his own will.
He lunged. Prime Rend cleaved through the Nullifier Prime's chest. The creature's silent scream shattered the void as its body fractured, glyphs dissolving into a storm of static symbols.
The storm collapsed into nothingness, rain of code fragments fading. The Prime was gone.
Kaelith rushed to him, shaking his shoulders. "Erevan! Stay with me! Don't… don't you dare leave me here!"
Erevan blinked, chest heaving, blood and sweat blending into a metallic tang. Feral grin spreading across his face. "No… I'm still me. All me."
Kyros's laughter lingered, a whisper in the edges of his mind, fading into static. "We'll see how long you keep pretending."
Erevan staggered upright, Kaelith steadying him, Sir Quacksalot still glaring like a tiny furious general.
"Okay," he rasped, voice hoarse, but determined. "New plan. We find that bastard… and we break him. On my terms."
The shattered void pulsed faintly around them. Whispers of the system murmured threats in every direction.
But for the first time, Erevan felt… in control.
Erevan's chest heaved. Pathbreaker flared hotter than ever, veins pulsing with energy that made his blood feel like molten metal. The shard screamed for dominance, trying to consume him, bend him, rewrite him. But he clenched his fists, teeth grinding, eyes locked on the Nullifier Prime.
The Prime's blade swung down, a wave of pure deletion, slicing through the fractured void. Every wireframe tree behind it trembled and blinked out of existence as if reality itself feared the blow.
Erevan dodged, sparks of glitch-fire trailing his movements, leaving fragments of distorted light in his wake. Every breath burned. Every heartbeat throbbed in rhythm with the shard's pulse. But he refused to yield.
I am not you. I am not the system. I am me.
The Nullifier Prime lunged again. Its glyph-plated body shimmered with malicious energy. Each strike tore through space, carving holes in the air. But Erevan moved like chaos made flesh, shards of himself flickering and merging around him. Prime Rend flowed through him, amplifying his every movement, every strike.
He collided with the Prime's blade. The impact erupted in a blinding explosion of static, warping reality in rippling arcs. Time fractured, slowing, then snapping back in stuttered bursts. Wireframe trees spun like pinwheels, shards of earth raining down in metallic arcs.
[System Alert: Nullifier Prime engaged]
[Pathbreaker resonance: Critical]
Kaelith's voice reached him over the chaos, trembling but fierce. "Erevan! Don't let it—don't let Kyros get to you! Focus!"
Sir Quacksalot flapped angrily on his shoulder, feathers bristled, quacking with all the fury of a tiny warlord.
Erevan's mind split between the shard's whispering, Kyros's lingering influence, and the tangible weight of the Prime before him. Every nerve screamed, but his will… his own will, blazed brighter.
No. Not you. Not now. Not ever.
He slammed YES again, a pulse of pure defiance. Light exploded, glyph-code threads ripping free from the Prime, converging on him instead of overtaking him. Every shard of himself multiplied, fracturing, merging, becoming something new. The pain was infinite, exquisite, and electric.
Prime Rend expanded fully, energy screaming along his arms and chest. Every strike, every movement, was amplified, flowing with his intent, not the shard's.
He lunged. Prime Rend cleaved through the Nullifier Prime's chest.
The creature's silent scream ripped the void apart as its form shattered, glyphs dissolving into storms of static. Pieces of code swirled, spun, then disintegrated into nothing.
Silence fell. The void trembled faintly, then stilled. The storm of symbols collapsed, leaving only fragments of what had been reality.
Kaelith ran to him, hands gripping his arms. "Erevan! Stay with me! Don't… don't you leave me here!"
Erevan laughed, ragged, feral, a mixture of exhaustion and triumph. Blood mixed with sweat on his face, dripping metallic tang into his mouth. "No… I'm still me. All me."
The shard pulsed violently, as if conceding. The whispers of assimilation faded. Pathbreaker's glow settled into steady warmth, no longer a predator, but a tool under his control.
Sir Quacksalot quacked proudly, feathers fluffed, perched on his shoulder like a tiny, judgmental general.
Kyros's voice lingered, just on the edge of thought. We'll see how long you keep pretending.
Erevan's eyes, glowing with glyph-fire, narrowed. Every breath was ragged, but every ounce of his being was razor-sharp with resolve.
"Okay," he rasped, voice hoarse but fierce, trembling with adrenaline and unspent power. "New plan. We find that bastard… and we break him. On my terms."
The shattered void around them pulsed faintly, remnants of the Prime's code dissipating into nothingness. But for the first time, Erevan felt it: control. Absolute, burning control.
And he knew, deep in the marrow of his bones, that nothing—not the system, not Kyros, not the void itself—would take that from him.
He was ready.